Trust@Health: A Trust-Based Multilayered Network for Scalable Healthcare Service Management

TL;DR

This paper introduces a trust-based multilayered network model for healthcare systems that leverages social and professional trust relationships to improve service management, patient referrals, and decision-making.

Contribution

It presents a novel evolutionary graph framework that models intra- and inter-layer trust relationships among healthcare entities for scalable healthcare management.

Findings

Strong correlation (0.91) between trust measures and hospital ratings.

Effective identification of key healthcare entities through trust analysis.

Supports scalable healthcare infrastructure and personalized recommendations.

Abstract

We study the intricate relationships within healthcare systems, focusing on interactions among doctors, departments, and hospitals. Leveraging an evolutionary graph framework, the proposed model emphasizes both intra-layer and inter-layer trust relationships to better understand and optimize healthcare services. The trust-based network facilitates the identification of key healthcare entities by integrating their social and professional interactions, culminating in a trust-based algorithm that quantifies the importance of these entities. Validation with a real-world dataset reveals a strong correlation (0.91) between the proposed trust measures and the ratings of hospitals and departments, though doctor ratings demonstrate skewed distributions due to potential biases. By modeling these relationships and trust dynamics, the framework supports scalable healthcare infrastructure, enabling effective patient referrals, personalized recommendations, and enhanced decision-making pathways.